In this chapter you'll have the opportunity to get familiar with nodejs. Here you'll learn the following:

• The basics of JavaScript
• The basics of node (asynchronous i/o, http, stream)
• The basics of npm
• The basics of Git and GitHub

The example we will be following is based on making the modern Hello World -- the TodoMVC frontend application. To start off our API, we will begin by mocking a JSON data store.

We chose Koa since it is a very small framework that enables you to write simple, yet powerful APIs using the node modules ecosystem.

In this example, we'll set up a few endpoints for our application. They will allow us to: list todos, add a todo, update a todo and delete a todo.

When it comes to Software Development there is nothing more valuable than a fast and well done test suite. In this chapter we'll introduce you to integration testing where you can understand how to develop software without being afraid of breaking things.

A good project needs at least an README.md, CHANGELOG.md and well-defined coding standards (eg: .jshintrc).

• Nuno Sousa
• Rui Marinho
• Tiago Ribeiro